


starry eyed

by pipecleanerFlowers



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-18 05:25:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/876115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipecleanerFlowers/pseuds/pipecleanerFlowers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Droite helps Kaito with some bruises he's accumulated throughout the training process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	starry eyed

Next thing, she’s touching his forehead and he can feel the raised edges of scars on her knuckles. She exhales, chest concaving, and he realizes that she’s too skinny, too depraved, just like he is, and it’s sad and painful all at once.

“Don’t touch me,” he says, swatting the hand away before he gets up, feeling his bones creak and muscles ache with the effort it takes. The last blow had been hard, there would no doubt be another bruise in the morning on his sickly pale skin. Skin which wasn’t used to lack of sunlight or being trapped inside a tower, one which everyone viewed as a symbol of utopia, for days on end.

“I can give you something for your eye—”

“I don’t need it—”

“Your brother will ask about it.”

Kaito stalls, thinking about how his brother always noticed his injuries. Always worried about them. Told him not to bother training and to leave the protecting to him — but he’s so young, he can’t — and to tell Heartland he’d quit as a Hunter. But Kaito couldn’t do that.

“What is it?” he finally asks.

“Concealer makeup, just to cover up the bruise. We’re a similar skin-tone so you can use mine,” Droite says. “I can help you put it on before you see Haruto tonight.”

“Alright.” His voice is raw and he only realizes that now as she’s leading him out of the room and he notices that Gauche had already left the training facility long before them.

Fluorescent lights blind them as they walk out of the dark room and it takes a moment to adjust. Droite says something, but there’s a strange ringing in his ears so he doesn’t quite catch it, but he figures it’s along the lines of “this way” or “follow me” and trudges behind her.

His breathing is laboured and slow and they take a while to get to her room if only because they’re both tired and their legs hurt from taking so many beatings, falling down and getting back up over and over again just to repeat the same exercise hoping for different results and more power. He wants to ask her why she’s here and how she does it all when she looks so small and frail, but then he remembers his own story and his own circumstances and decides he doesn’t want to talk about it.

No one ever really talked about their pasts in Heartland Tower. No one was nosy enough to pry, since they’d inevitably be pried at themselves. Kaito was always kind of glad about that unspoken social structure.

He doesn’t realize they’ve reached her room until she voices a sardonic “welcome to my humble home,” and suddenly he appreciates the fact that he’s not the only one who despises living here.

“Looks just like mine,” he mutters, and he thinks about how the entire thing reeks of “Hunter Factory” and dreads the day they throw him out and replace him with another poor sucker who gets dragged into doing Faker’s bidding.

Droite leads him to the bathroom and opens a drawer full of toiletries, sifting through them until she finds a small jar. “You can sit on the counter,” she says, and he does so, heaving himself up and feeling his arms creak again.

Her fingers are light and cool against his skin, but it still hurts against his brow and temple, where the bruising is, but she’s blowing on it to try and take away from the burning he feels. “So is this how you hide your pain?” he asks. She nods silently in response before adding another layer.

It feels like ages before she’s done. He can still feel her breath, blowing strands of his mussed hair. They both looked like total wrecks, but at least no one can see how black and blue their skin really was.

“Done,” she says, though her eyes say she’s not, and he knows what she’s thinking. His limp, cut lip, the bleeding on his collarbone… But there were too many things to fix.

Kaito slides off the counter and turns to face the mirror, inspecting her work. “Looks like it was never there.”

“The magic of makeup,” she says, and again it’s sarcastic. “Now go, your brother is waiting for you.”

“Yeah… thank you.” With that, he leaves, and yet again he’s faced with the fluorescent lights of the corridors that are all too hard and mechanical. He hated it all so much, with all of his being, but he had to be there.

For Haruto.


End file.
